de_octogon

Really awesome map! The textures are cool, well aligned, the theme is awesome and i like the size of it.

Cool job.

[EDIT]

Its possible to exit the map on this location:This is how i did it:Its also possible from in front of the building near the angled ground.

i'm coming in my pants to try this when i get home! looks pro from the screens, and of course, this is taylor of which we are speaking =P

Now this type of map is what the MOTM was designed for =)

Tremendous variation and attention to detail, and very interesting to explore around, this map is wonderful.

A couple of distractions i noticed:

one unit brushes and gaps
I avoid ever making a brush 1 unit thick or leave 1-unit gaps(like n the crack of your door), because the way HL aliases edges it just stands out too much, and is visually distracting imo.

texture scale
some texture scales(or maybe the texture itself, i'm not sure), like the slate one in the courtyard and a few other places looks like it's stretched too big, and/or is just the wrong texture for that imo. If it looked clearer i would work better imo, but maybe a detail texture would help with this?

world scale
i feel like some things seemed too big. if you developed this testing in HL and now are realeasing in cs, i would understand because i think the camera position is different, but idk, some stuff just seems to big/thick.

shadows
the lighting looks great, but some shadows seem to be missing, like from the trees in the courtyard. For things that don't cast a shadow like illusionaries or models, you can put null brushes above them i think to approximate the right shadow.

anyhoo, great work mate! =P

Wow, thanks for the extensive review!

The only point I would argue is the world scale, the map had problems regarding scale in early versions, but I was under the impression that it came out well. Which parts do you feel too big / thick?

Also, working on model shadows atm, but it seems to double (!) the vis time with no end in sight - running for 12 straight hours now, and it seems to be stuck at 60%.

Anyway, thanks again for your nice review!

Also btw for the trees, don't use a complicated shape for the shadows, just a null block or 3 above should do it; test it with cordon compile to see what works and where you have to position the block(s).

I'm having trouble remembering of a direct example map of this, maybe i will make one? (but that would mean i would have to open hammer 3.x, and i don't want to do that) =P

BTW, don't EVER use the ZHLT light flags, afaik, they cause more bugs/problems than they fix. (what compile tools are you using btw?)

The download died. Do you still have this one, Taylor? TWHL can handle big uploads these days